Advice for Rising High Schoolers

All these posts about high school graduations set me thinking: what advice might I have benefited from back when I was transitioning from middle school to high school? Like many students, I look back on high school as an awkward time: I was socially clueless, immature, confused, anxious, and absolutely convinced that every other student in the school had the whole thing figured out. Would a list like this have made my journey less fraught? At the very least, feel like seeing so many of my anxieties acknowledged and expressed might have been reassuring, if not actually instructive. 

What advice do you wish someone had imparted to you before your high school career? 

MENTAL HEALTH

1. Get over yourself. While it's tempting to imagine that everyone's judging you by your every word and deed, the fact of the matter is that people are way too distracted and self-absorbed to spend time observing and judging others. Don't let an exaggerated sense of self-consciousness prevent you from doing you. 
2. Everyone else in high school will be as insecure as you are - they just may hiding it better. It's not you - it's an unpleasant but inescapable phase of human development.
3. Pretty much everything you're going to think matters - appearance, number of friends, dating, reputation - doesn't actually matter. You will come to realize this for yourself the day you graduate. Until then, just take our word for it. 
4. Envy is both pointless and poisonous. Over the long term, life has a way of evening things out. In the words of Elsa, "let it go." 
5. Every day is a new day, and a chance at a new start. No need to wait for a new year, a new quarter, a new teacher, a new group of friends, a new season: change starts happening the moment you let it start happening. 
6. Time heals all wounds, including broken friendships, betrayal, and heartache.
7. There *will* be stress. Your job is to develop healthy ways to deal with it. Sleep, exercise, laughter, family, pets, hobbies .... all of these will help you deal. 
8. Set boundaries and trust your instincts. Don't let your core values be corrupted by pop culture or peer pressure.  To quote Professor Dumbledore: "It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
9. You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it.  Practice meeting adversity with dignity.
10. When the temptation to go low is strongest, that's when it's most important to go high. Remember that forgiveness isn't about absolving the other person of guilt (it doesn't) - it's about protecting your own mental health. 
11. Pursue things that make you happy, not things you think *should* make you happy ... or that others tell you should make you happy. 
12. Changing your attitude can change your reality. Research has shown that if you pretend to more confidence than you actually feel, you'll start feeling more genuinely confident over time. 
13. Who you are now isn't who you're going to be forever.  Not feeling like you've achieved your best self? Don't worry, there's still plenty of time for that. 
14. Grades may be fine for measuring your performance on a specific task, but they don't measure your intelligence, your worth, or your future.
15. Don't punish yourself for mistakes, but do learn from them. If you aren't making mistakes, you're not learning - you're just treading water. The challenge is owning up to your mistakes and trying to avoid them the next time.   
16. It's okay if high school isn't "the best time of your life." Life is a long game; who wants to peak in high school?  

FRIENDS & EMPATHY

1. Practice empathy; don't judge others until you've walked in their shoes. (And, while you're at it, avoid killing mockingbirds.) 
2. Actions speak louder than words. It's what you *do* that matters, not what you wish you'd done, or what you intended to do. Gratitude, kindness, respect, and courage matter. 
3. Gossip isn't entertainment, it's bullying. Just don't.
4. The friends that matter are the ones who like you for who you are, not who you're pretending to be. 
5. Some friends are there for a season, some for a reason, some for a lifetime. Learn how to tell the difference
6. Relationships require effort. Take the time and effort to nurture the ones that matter. 
7. Surround yourself with people who challenge you. The best way to advance is to surround yourself with people who constantly push you forward. 

ACADEMICS & ACHIEVEMENT

1. Success in high school is, as in life, 90% effort, 10% luck.  Your success will depend almost wholly on the effort you put into it. However, some things will also require patience. 
2. Develop your critical thinking skills.  High school is when you need to learn how to start thinking for yourself instead of allowing other people (parents, teachers, friends, politicians, social media influencers) to think for you. The sooner you master this skill, the better. 
3. Venture beyond your comfort zone and seek out new experiences. Growth comes from exposing yourself to new ideas and experiences. Later in life, new experiences can be harder to come by, so take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
4. Maintain a healthy balance between academics and extracurriculars. Both are equally important in preparing you for life. 
5. You don't know as much as you think you know. Not even close. Be open to viewing things from different perspectives, changing your mind, and accepting constructive criticism graciously.
6. Never be afraid to ask questions. You're not expected to know all the answers - otherwise, you wouldn't need schooling
7. Teachers are there to help you, but they can't help you if you don't tell them what you need. 
8. You can do anything, but not everything. Don't expect to be good at everything you do, but also don't let not being great at something prevent you from doing it!  
9. Most of the things you think are limiting you are actually self-imposed. Practice replacing "I can't do that" with "I can't do that YET."
10. Perfection isn't attainable.  Stop trying, and never, ever use "I'm afraid it's not going to be perfect" as an excuse not to attempt something. You learn 0% of what you don't attempt. 
11. Academics is one path to success, but it isn't the only path.
12. Even if your future lies along another path, however, a high school degree can be critical to accessing all the other paths. Don't close doors that you may one day need to walk through. 

Reality Check: 10 Things Your Parents Should Have Taught You About the Real World

File this under "flash rant," but getting tired of interacting with folks who seem not to have been taught these few foundational principles of life by the people - parents, guardians - who should have done so. 

Perhaps if we posted these 10 "reality checks" in every classroom, instead of the 10 Commandments, we might actually start churning out students prepared to function as responsible, respectful adults.

1. Life isn't fair; sometimes good guys get hurt, and sometimes bad guys prevail.
2. People aren't thinking about you nearly as much as you think you are.
3. You don't know half of what you think you know.
4. You are free to make your own choices, but you are not free of the consequences.
5. You don't get to dictate what other people think or do.
6. Only you can fix you.
7. Basic respect is a right; enduring respect is earned.
8. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you always get.
9. Other people's lived experience is just as valid as yours.
10. People will judge you based on your actions, not your intentions.

20 Things We Should Be Worried About But We Aren't (Yet) ...

One thing this decade seems to have plenty of: stuff to worry about. Political disruptions. Climate change. Pandemics. North Korean nukes. Trade wars. Terrorism.  Opioids.  Immigration.  Genocides. Refugee crises. Gun violence.  Russian hacking.  Sexual harassment. #BlackLivesMatter. Healthcare. The national deficit. Bitcoin bubbles. Privacy. Trash gyres. Rainforest destruction. GMOs. Beehive Colony Collapse Disorder. The approaching Singularity.

Just in case you were beginning to worry that you weren’t worrying enough, I’ve compiled a list of concerns that aren’t dramatic enough for the front page, but that will do perfectly well if you’ve been getting too much healthy sleep and need something to keep you up at night.  (And if 20 nightmare scenarios aren't enough, I recommend the above book, What Should We Be Worried About, a collection of essays in which really smart people talk about what keeps them up at night.  Guaranteed to make you lose sleep.)

1. AN UNFAIR AND UNEQUAL EDUCATION. Is it a coincidence that political corruption is most rampant in states that have the lowest test scores?  I worry that state funding of education creates a system that incentivizes corrupt politicians to deliberately undermine schools.  After all, who’s more likely to continue to elect corrupt politicians – a well-educated citizenry or a bunch of kids who never developed critical thinking skills and who, therefore, are stupid enough to believe the election commercials? Unlike many teachers, I was a big fan of No Child Left Behind because it required at least some accountability for educating students.  But ever since the Supreme Court began ruling that anything that isn't explicitly stated in the Constitution isn't protected, we're a decision away from states deciding to eliminate mandatory public schooling entirely. One of the few sacrifices of a well-functioning democracy is that it requires an educated citizenry capable of making considered decisions. We need to stop forgetting that.
2. REALITY DENIAL, aka “Just a moment while I interrupt your evidence-based reality with my unsubstantiated opinions.” I worry that in their rush to ensure “fair representation,” media outlets are creating the impression that opinions deserve as much weight as reality.  There’s a famous quote by Asimov: “There is a cult of ignorance […] measured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as [valid] as your knowledge.” Every time media organizations allow newsmakers to express "alternative facts" without calling them out (or, even worse, treat these alternative facts as legitimate) they reinforce the fallacy that opinion is somehow equivalent to truth.  In a world where technology makes it all too easy for people to bypass legitimate forms of news in favor of self-validating and self-reinforcing "alternative realities," I worry that we are at risk of forgetting what "truth" is, and why it matters. 
3. KIDS THAT CAN’T PASS THE MARSHMALLOW TEST.  You’ve heard of the marshmallow test, right? You put a child and a marshmallow in the same room, then promise the child that if they don’t touch the marshmallow until you return, you’ll let them have two.  In other words, twice the marshmallow.  100% more marshmallow. And yet an alarming number of the kids, lacking the tiny amount of self-control required to resist the urge, consume the marshmallow at once. I worry that in a world where video games now incorporate “mini-games” so you don’t have to wait until the end to win something, where mature adults whine when websites take more than an instant to upload, where drivers explode into road-rage when intersections are slow to clear, and where one-day delivery still isn’t quick enough – in other words, in a world where  instant gratification has become an expectation rather than the exception – what hope is there that future generations will possess the patience and willingness to embrace near-term sacrifice in order to ensure longer-term gain?
4. GENERATIONAL HOMOGENIZATION.  I worry that current and future generations are losing their unique identities.  It’s hard to witness my little nieces and nephews watch Disney movies (some of them over 70yrs old at this point), to listen to my sons stream Spotify’s “I Love the ‘80S!” radio station as they do homework, to watch my students cycling through every unfortunate fashion trend from the past 50 years – and not worry about generational homogenization. Back when I was a kid I remember attending ‘60s parties (everyone wore poodle skirts), ‘70s parties (everyone wore hippie finery), ‘80s parties (think big hair and disco).  Then came the millennia and suddenly – thanks to DVD players, internet, and streaming sites like Hulu – teens aren’t inventing their own culture so much as appropriating all the cultures that came before them. When I’m not worrying about what the hell I’m going to wear if – God help me - I ever get invited to a ‘00s party, I worry about the lasting social and cultural impact of generations with no unique, original identity to call their own
5. Speaking of which: CULTURAL HOMOGINIZATION.  I worry that the same forces that are hastening globalization – internet, multinational corporations – are hastening the homogenization of international cultural identities. Remember when American cities like San Francisco, Boston, and Nashville used to have their own unique personalities? Now, with the exception of a few districts, these cities are practically indistinguishable, overtaken by identical chain restaurants, big box stores, and cars.  How long before every country has its own Hollywood/Bollywood, its own food courts featuring a variety of faux-ethnic cuisine, roads overrun by identical cars, store windows filled with identical fashions, radios playing identical playlists?  I weep to imagine a world in which globalization robs us of cultural diversity and identity.
6. IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX?  I worry that we aren’t ready for the onslaught of virtual reality about to descend upon us.  Keep in mind that our brains are so susceptible to intense emotion that grief has been known to trigger heart attacks, childhood trauma to trigger life-long mental illness, and intense fear/horror to trigger PTSD.  And then there’s the flipside: brains so giddy on opioids that their owners will literally self-destruct rather than do without.  In other words, we humans are pretty fragile vessels when it comes to handling intense emotion. So what happens when super-intense virtual reality experiences inadvertently trigger these responses; or, perhaps even worse, when our species begins developing a tolerance for them? What happens when natural beauty fails to enchant as completely as virtual beauty; when actual violence fails to appall when compared to the excesses of virtual violence; when the burdens of actual life pale in comparison with the non-stop entertainment of virtual life?
7. Speaking of which: AUTONOMOUS WARFARE.  I worry that anything that reduces the social or emotion costs of war, runs the risk of perpetuating war.  There’s a reason the minds of soldiers are so easily scarred by warfare: it’s a traumatic, grotesque, and wholly unnatural act to slay a fellow human. That makes the very best disincentive for waging war, war itself.  By gradually transitioning to a system of remote warfare, where soulless drones, submarines, and long-range missile systems deliver armaments to GPS coordinates rather than human settlements, however, we have created a more politically palatable system of killing.  People are still dying horrific deaths, it’s just that we don’t have to be there watching as they suffer and die.  Whoever developed PTSD from watching a blip on a screen? By placing violence at an arm’s distance, I worry that we’re making war socially, emotionally, and politically palatable, allowing us to cling to the pretense of “civilization” even as we continue to commit barbaric acts of violence.
8. VIRAL VIRUSES.  I worry that viruses (the microscopic type, not the digital type – though they can be lethal too) are going to take us out.  In case you’ve forgotten everything you learned about viruses in 7^th grade, let me remind you that these are scary dudes. From the standpoint of evolution, they were here before us and they've used that lead time to figure out how outlive pretty much everything else.  They laughed off the last five mass extinctions as if they were hiccups. Unlike bacteria, viruses hide inside your cells so your immune system has difficulty finding them. They mutate rapidly, making them a moving target, they can't be killed by antibiotics because they're not living organisms, and they're wicked contagious because the only way they can propagate is to constantly infect new hosts ... all of which enables them to sweep through populations like tsunamis - sudden, violent, unstoppable (see: flu, HIV, ebola). I worry that in our natural state of hubris, we humans aren't taking viruses seriously, at our peril. 
9. Speaking of which: LONGEVITY.  I worry that people are living too long.  Sure, immortality sounds great, and it would solve that nagging problem of how to explore space when the shortest trip to a habitable planet takes longer than the average human lifespan – but in practical terms, immortality would be a disaster in almost every conceivable way.  How can we possibly control Earth’s growing population if new babies continue to be born but no one dies? How do we find jobs, homes, food, water for all those extra people?  More abstractly, how do we grow socially, creatively or intellectually as a race unless we keep innovating – which process which requires a steady turnover of new brains entering a given field?  (See also: Cultural Homogenization.) How does natural selection continue to improve the survivability of our species if our birthrate slows to a crawl?  How do we find the money to research the diseases of youth if most of the Earth is ruled by elders who have the power/money to divert medical research to their own needs?  How do we meet the health and social needs of aging populations without burdening their children – essentially robbing them of their chance to live independently because, from the age of ~40 on, they’re tethered to the needs of elderly relatives? How do we fill all that extra time in a meaningful way, so that everyone doesn’t go bonkers from boredom?  Plus, in the immortal words of Queen, who wants to live forever when love must die?
10. SPACE JUNK. I worry that if we keep launching stuff into space, it’s going to become impossible to ensure the safety of the satellites and other objects up there that we rely on to do important stuff like facilitate satellite communications, track major weather events, and make GPS work.  I get that space is vast, and the chances of collision are small.  However, I’m also betting our satellite systems don’t have a lot of built in redundancy, especially since nearly all of them were built by the lowest bidder.
11. Speaking of which: GPS HACKING.  Has anyone been paying attention to just how much we’ve come to rely on GPS? It helps guide airplanes to airports, fishermen to where the fish are, and weapons to where the enemies are; it sets our clocks; it supports accurate mapping of weather phenomenon; and it keeps us from getting lost when our doctors relocate to new office buildings.  And yet, the system is so antiquated and vulnerable to hacking that even the U.S. military is urging its branches to develop their own backup systems. Think about all the money we’re spending on “smart weapons” that require GPS guidance; now consider that all those weapons could be rendered unusable by $20 worth of electrical components available from Amazon
12. THE IMPENDING MAGNETIC SHIFT.  I worry about what happens when Earth’s magnetic poles decide to swap – as in, the north pole becomes the south pole and visa versa.   This has happened periodically throughout Earth’s history and, geologically speaking, we’re overdue for next shift.  In fact, there’s ample evidence that a switch is coming: the magnetic north pole has been shifting up to 5miles per year, a traditional sign that polar shift is imminent.  This is a much (much) bigger deal than just having to recalibrate all the compasses in the world. Earth’s magnetic “shield” is all that’s preventing deadly subatomic particles from pelting all life on earth to extinction. And while the shield doesn’t actually disappear during polar shifts, it does becomes significantly weaker, meaning some stuff is going to slip through.  I’m not sure tinfoil hats are going to be enough.
13. Speaking of which: ANTICS IN ANTARCTICA.  I promised myself I wouldn’t mention climate change here, since everyone’s worried about climate change. What bothers me is that I don’t hear anyone talking about what happens when Antarctica melts.  Is anyone paying attention to what’s underneath all that ice? Copper, iron, oil, coal, silver, gold, platinum and … wait for it … stores of unexploited rare earth minerals, the ones that facilitate our advanced electronics. At various times countries as diverse as Argentina, France, Australia, Chile, Norway and the U.K. have claimed ownership of bits and pieces of the continent, before they all buried the hatchet and signed The Antarctic Treaty in 1959 agreeing that no one would make any more territorial claims. How long do you think everyone’s going to keep holding hands and humming It’s A Small World once those gold deposits defrost? A hint of things to come: Russia is already fortifying their "research stations" with troops. 
14. TOO MUCH CONNECTIVITY.  I worry about what happens when we connect all our important systems to a single grid and then the grid goes down. While the whole Y2K thing was much ado about nothing, I worry that we’ve too quickly forgotten the reason we were worried – that as our communications systems (satellites and internet), banking systems (encrypted trading systems running over wireless), navigation/weapons systems (GPS) and social systems (smart phones) become increasingly interconnected, the collapse of any one of these systems might bring them all down. Forget North Korean nukes – I fear we’re one well-aimed computer virus away from the collapse of civilization as we know it.
15. Speaking of which: WHO’S BACKING THIS ?#$ UP?  I worry about what happens to all that lovely digital data if the electricity goes out.  Recently I was at a presentation by one of Nook’s designers, who happened to mention, in passing, that individual servers in server farms have a three year life span. Think about that. Servers have to be replaced every THREE years.  Which means one year of inadequate electrical supply could wipe out one third of all our bits and bytes; two years might put paid to up to two thirds of our cumulative digital wisdom, and a third year could wipe it all out entirely.  If young adult authors are to be believed, three years sans electricity isn’t even reaching when it comes to potential dystopian futures.  Just in case, I’m hoarding books and printing out my photos.
16. Speaking of which: WHO CONTROLS OUR DIGITAL CONTENT?  Even supposing our data survives a digital apocalypse, we’re still not out of the woods. I’m not talking about digital hacking, which is on everyone’s radar and thus fails to qualify for this list. I’m talking about the more nefarious forms of digital alteration, perhaps introduced under the guise of profit (“I bet we’d sell more copies of literature classics if we omit the boring chapters!”), political correctness (“Rather than risk causing any emotional distress, let’s just remove ALL the scenes that might trigger people”), or patriotism (“If we release those statistics about civilian deaths, popular support for this war might wane).  The problem with digital information is that it’s so easily modified, that modifications are so incredibly difficult to detect, and that excuses for engaging in digital modification may present as innocent, possibly even logical.  I worry that as our society moves towards digitizing every form of communication – from journals to journalism, from interpersonal communications to entertainment, from commerce to conversations – “digital alteration” may gain the power not just to alter our perception of reality, but reality itself.
17. SCIENCE FICTION: NOT JUST FOR NERDS.  I worry that we’re not paying enough attention to science fiction writers. These guys think about the future for a living, and if past experience is any guide, they often do a scarily good job of projecting potential outcomes of current technology trends.  Take Isaac Asimov, who back in the 1940s invented the 3 Laws of Robotics that still guide robotic engineering today.  (Seriously: look them up.)  Take Ray Bradbury’s short story, The Sound of Thunder, from which the Butterfly Effect derives – a precept that has come to shape the way we think about time travel into the past.  Take 1984 and compare its use of surveillance and news jargon to what exists in the world today (“alternate facts!”).  More importantly, look at predictions that have been made by these guys that haven’t yet come true but that should serve as precautionary tales if we let them: Arthur C. Clarke’s Dial F for Frankenstein, in which a telephone network gains consciousness and gradually takes over the world’s financial, transportation, and communication systems; the implicit warning of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park against the hubris of assuming we can control nature (or, substitute the implicit warning in his Prey against the hubris of assuming we can control nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and AI); or what Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 has to say about the dangers of eliminating texts that make us feel “uncomfortable” (think trigger warnings). Science fiction isn’t just a genre, it’s a think tank of great minds devoted to predicting possible future.  That’s why smart people read it, and why more of us should probably heed it.
18. Speaking of which: ROBOT SHORTAGES. While everyone else seems to be worried about too many robots, I’m worried we won’t have nearly enough – at least not enough of the sort capable of doing the work that actually needs doing.  Every time I turn on NPR, someone’s talking about how U.S. jobs are being replaced by robotics. Don’t worry about closing the immigration tap: those unfilled jobs will replaced by robots. Don’t worry about the U.S.’s unsustainable productivity figures: robots will take over when humans can’t keep up. My question is: who’s making all these robots? Moreover, who’s making them cheaply enough that it’s going to be affordable to put them to work landscaping, doing construction, and working at McDonalds?  It’s far more likely that robots will be taking over skilled jobs, the ones that pay the good money, leaving it to us humans to perform all those manual labor jobs.
19. A MORE PERFECT UNION? I worry that in our patriotism-fueled enthusiasm to spread Democracy throughout the world, we give up looking for other forms of government that might be better.  Consider: in a democratic system, every time a majority party wins an election, there’s a whole minority party in the background feeling royally resentful. If recent politics have taught us nothing else, we’ve learned just how resentful (and destructive) those minorities can be. European countries have tried dealing with this by implementing coalition systems, but is a compromise where no one gets what they want any better than at least some people getting the government they wanted? There’s got to be a better way, and I’d like to believe someone’s still looking for it.
20. THE DEATH OF CONTEMPLATION. Finally, I worry about the death of contemplation.  The problem isn’t that we’re working longer hours; the problem is that we now have an enormous choice of entertainments with which to waste away our remaining spare hours. Remember back in the “olden days,” when people with time on their hands engaged in such past-times as strolling, gardening, reading, playing music, writing letters, doing needlework, sitting by the fire getting warm?   All these occupations had one thing in common: they left time for thinking.  For letting the mind wander where it will. For musing, examining, questioning, conjecturing, imagining, evaluating, reasoning, reflecting.  Time for allowing ideas not just to stash themselves away for later retrieval, but to wander around a bit before arriving at their ultimate destination, allowing for the creation of fanciful juxtapositions and the discovery of curious connections.  The kind of reflection that leads not just to life-long learning, but to the development of wisdom.  I worry that in our rash to gain and share knowledge, we are forgetting the importance of giving ourselves to reflect upon what we’ve learned and thereby gaining wisdom.

100+ Tips for New Teachers

It's beginning to look a lot like Labor Day, so thought I'd post this list in honor of all the new teachers who are even now chewing their nails and writing impossibly brilliant lesson plans that will never succeed in the classroom.  Unlike most other lists you'll find on the internet, this one is only partially in earnest, because if you haven't already figured out how to laugh at the job, you need to start now!

1. Take the free food. You’ve earned it.
2. Go to the bathroom when you’ve got the chance
3. Everything’s better with glitter
4. The word “Uranus” never stops being funny
5. Your classroom will never be the right temperature, no matter how many times you fiddle with the thermostat
6. Fire drills will happen at the worst possible time
7. Learn to eat lunch in 10 minutes or less
8. The day your lesson plan goes disastrously wrong is the day your principal will choose to observe you
9. Don’t blow all that money you’ll be earning on fast cars or high living
10. The only thing more annoying than kids constantly sharpening their pencils is kids constantly running out of lead for their mechanical pencils
11. Choose your battles
12. Set realistic goals. “I will survive this day,” is an example of a realistic goal.
13. Learn to say “no”
14. The only thing worse than writing sub plans is writing sub plans after you’re already sick
15. Learn to celebrate the small successes. Like fixing the copier without smearing toner all over your clothes
16. Don’t even try to do this alone.  Find teachers/mentors who will help you
17. Don’t reinvent the wheel
18. It’s your classroom; that makes you the referee
19. Back up your files; you never know when someone’s going to spill apple juice on your keyboard
20. The first people you need to befriend are the office secretary, the custodians, and the librarian
21. Avoid asking “are there any questions?” without adding “…about what we’ve been learning?” – unless you want to answer questions about poop
22. Dogs no longer eat homework. Computers do
23. There’s no tired like teacher tired
24. Invest your savings now in companies that produce tissues, hand sanitizer, Sharpies, and aspirin
25. Forget fashion; buy comfortable shoes
26. Never wear anything that requires dry cleaning
27. Teaching isn’t about the content you deliver, it’s all about how you deliver it
28. Elaborately decorated classrooms and color coded supplies have not been proven to improve academic achievement
29. Teacher supply stores are like candy stores. You may want it, but you really don’t need it.
30. Lessons need to be engaging. Worksheets are not engaging. Relevant, authentic, active, project-based learning is engaging
31. The students should be working harder than you
32. Set high standards
33. Teach growth mindset
34. Praise the effort, not the product
35. Empower your students to advocate for themselves
36. Build in opportunities for imagination and creativity
37.  Fair isn’t equal. “Smart” takes many forms.  Differentiate your content, processes, products, and timelines
38. Buy yourself a really, really big water bottle. And a coffee holder with a lid
39. Get the flu shot
40. Take germ prevention seriously. (Yours, not so much theirs.)
41. Encourage them to explore their passions
42. First impressions count. Make sure your first day rocks
43. Focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses
44. Look for giftedness. Look for disabilities. Be proactive in taking action.
45. You don’t have to grade everything. Seriously, you don’t
46. Stay calm. The person who gets angry first, loses.
47. Never let them see you sweat. Children are like wolves; they sense fear.
48. Research-based best practices need to be backed by actual research. Otherwise they’re just educational fads. Know the difference
49. Learn their names. Then use them. All the time
50. Most of the time, they don’t actually need to go to their bathroom
51. When everything else fails, take them to the library
52. Be authoritative, not authoritarian
53. They’re going to talk anyway; make it work for you
54. Allow wait time.
55. Be consistent
56. Built trust
57. Answer questions with questions; make them find their own answers
58. Never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want parents or your boss to see
59. It’s about restorative justice, not punishment
60. Never issue a threat you’re not prepared to enforce
61. Work on your snow dance now so you’ll be ready for winter
62. Overplan. Running out of lesson before the bell is like a lion tamer running out of meat before all the lions are fed.
63. Don’t be that teacher that sends out communications to parents filled with spelling, punctuation and grammar errors
64. CYA - document all parent and admin interactions.
65. The best motivator is respect. If respect doesn’t work, try blue Jolly Ranchers
66. Never humiliate a student. They’ll never trust you again
67. Do first, ask permission later
68. Be flexible. If you don’t learn to bend, be prepared to break
69. Constantly assess for comprehension. Like, every 5 minutes.
70. The problem probably isn’t the rules; it’s how you’re enforcing them
71. Intrinsic motivation beats external motivation every time.
72. Make parents your allies, not your enemies.
73. Never email angry
74. Look for the teachable moments.
75. Create smooth traffic patterns through your classroom
76. Establish consistent routines and procedures. Kids appreciate consistency
77. Avoid negative energy
78. Remember that being a mom/sister/wife/daughter comes first
79. NEVER talk over student noise
80. Plan a robust fart response protocol and have it ready to deploy
81. The kids actually WANT to help you. Let them.
82. Remember that most of them have the attention span of squirrel, and plan accordingly
83. Master the art of the “side hug” – no one’s ever been sued for a side hug
84.  Kids who are hungry, sleepy, or scared aren’t going to prioritize learning.
85. Learn your acronyms
86. Be compassionate: you don’t know what’s happening at home
87. There will never be enough time. Prioritize
88. Energy, enthusiasm, optimism, and curiosity are contagious
89. Executive functioning skills need to be taught
90. Crying is cathartic. Wine/beer is an acceptable alternative
91. Disapprove of the behavior, never the kid
92. Model the behaviours you want to see
93. Apples often don’t fall far from trees, except when they do
94. You can either laugh or cry. Laughing is a lot more fun
95. The more they push, the more they’re hoping you’ll push back.
96. The more they say they don’t need you, the more they do
97. Get used to failure. The mistakes will help you grow.
98.  It’s just a job. Don’t let it become an obsession.
99. 99.         There’s always more to learn
100. 100.      Fake it ‘til you make it
101. You WILL get better

Book Look: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Admit I spent years unfairly biased against this book because so many people told me I should read this for its literary significance - Harlem Renaissance, New Negro Movement, etc. If only they'd told me I should read it because it's a moving and gorgeously written narrative, perhaps I wouldn't have waited so long! For those of you who many be in the same boat, let me allay your fears: this isn't a militant polemic against racism, nor the self-conscious, bloated "trophy novel" of a literary giant, nor the product of a specific time and ethos ... this is just really good storytelling, ageless and affecting in all the ways good storytelling should be.

This story narrates the life of Janie, an African-American woman growing up in Florida in the early 20th century. Yes, it was an era when racism was rife, and racism shapes the paths of her life in a thousand explicit and implicit ways, but this isn't primarily a story about racism: it's about a woman finding the courage to pursue what makes her happy, even as social norms and customs work actively to thwart her. In Janie's case, all she wants is not to have to pretend to be something she's not. Discarding husbands along the way, she finally finds happiness with a man years younger than herself - a fitting match(at last) for her young soul. In this era of modern, self-realized feminism, her patient acceptance of unhappiness, exploitation, and abuse may grate, but I believe Hurston is doing no more than painting Janie's story with the colors of her own life and times.

At the time it was published, I gather this book was not well received by Hurston's Harlem peers. I see their point (or I think I see it) - many of the secondary characters in the tale seem plucked straight out of a "common black stereotypes" casting call. There's her second husband, the Carpetbagger, fast-talking and slick and not above exploiting his fellow African-Americans; her best friend, the Patient Black Woman selflessly putting everyone else's happiness before her own; her third husband, a happy-go-lucky Mr. Bojangles; and a whole posses of straw-chewing, tall-tale-telling Old Black Men gathered wherever there's a porch and a checkerboard to host them. Again, I think this is just Hurston painting with the palette she knows, bravely (much like her heroine Janie) writing what made her happy rather than what her peers thought she ought to be writing.

Another criticism I've heard of the book is that Hurston's use of dialect can make this a slow read. For that reason I deliberately listened to it as an audiobook, narrated by actress/poet/journalist/civil rights activist Ruby Dee. Through her interpretation, any barriers between the reader and the language quickly melts away in a flood of appreciation for the uniquely authentic and evocative speech patterns and lyric metaphorical allusions employed by Hurston's rich and complex subculture. Seriously, some of the figurative language is so stunningly expressive, at times I had to stop reading and just pause to appreciate it.

As for that title, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" ... I suppose you could interpret it a lot of ways. Based on the context in which it is used in the story, though, I think it's meant to communicate the profound fragility of the lives these characters lead. None of us control our destiny, but surely this is even more profoundly true of African-Americans in mid-20th century U.S. Characters like Janie and Teacake may possess internal strength, but each of them accepts without question that they are creatures of fickle and unjust fate. What, then, to do, but embrace the moments of happiness God grants them, understanding that at any time - for reasons they will never be able to predict, control or comprehend - He may pull the rug out from under them?

I hope this review encourages others to give this a read, and I especially encourage book clubs to consider adding this to their reading lists. There's so much here to discuss, ponder, and appreciate.

Everything I've Learned About the English from Reading from English Literature

Reading is supposed to be the poor man's answer to travel: if you can't afford to visit a place, at least you can read about it, right?  I've never been fortunate enough to travel to England, so my understanding of the culture is entirely based on a survey of the country's literature. Here's what I've gleaned so far: 

1. At all times, English villages are either planning a church fete or actually in the midst of one (Christie)
2. Forebear crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted (Doyle, Bronte)
3. Anything worth saying, sounds even more impressive in iambic pentameter (Shakespeare)
4. The London poor are a whimsical class populated by fallen gentlemen, endearing orphans, and picturesque villains (Dickens)
5. The country is disproportionately inhabited by single men in possession of good fortunes, all of whom are in want of wives (Austen)
6. All wild, gay young bucks come automatically furnished with imperturbable butlers (Wodehouse, Sayers) 
7. Portals to alternative worlds are everywhere (Carroll, C.S. Lewis, Rowlings)
8. The best way to conceal your pain and inner despair is behind a veil of acerbic wit (Pope, Swift, Waugh)
9. When caught in a potentially ridiculous situation, tell a preposterous lie and then hope for the best (Wilde, Congreve, Sheridan)
10. Tea makes everything better - and if tea doesn't work, there's always a pub nearby (Wodehouse)
11. The best death is a heroic death (Malory, Wren), but if you can't manage that, at least endeavor to die tragically from thwarted love (Bronte, McEwan)
12. Everything's funnier in drag (Shakespeare)
13. True nobility is determined by character, not by birth (Scott, Kipling, Stevenson)
14. The best poet is a tormented poet (Byron, Shelley)
15. Forests are generally untrustworthy places, inclined to be teaming with fairies, green men, and merry-making highwaymen (Spenser, Shakespeare, Robin Hood)
16. If Scotland Yard can't solve your crime, there's sure to be an innocuous lord/vicar/old lady/foreign visitor prepared to step in (Christie, Sayers, Chesterton)
17. Revenge is best served up raw and bloody (Marlowe, Johnson, Shakespeare)
18. Nice girls get their reward in heaven (Milton, Richardson), but naughty girls get their reward here on earth (Chaucer, Cleland)
19. In a world ruled by chaos, the only honorable way to cope is to maintain a stiff upper lip and carry on (Waugh)